Enhance taste and scents with aromatics

By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Food Editor

Oregano, rosemary, chives, basil and dill, left, enhance the flavor of meats, poultry, fish and vegetables. Sage, right, is often used to complement the flavors of sausage and poultry stuffing. Gannett News Service

All plants contain volatile oils, but herbs, defined as the green leaves and stems of flavoring plants (as opposed to roots, nuts and seeds, which are defined as spices), tend to contain the oils in greater concentration.

Fresh herbs are much more readily available than they once were: Most large supermarkets now stock fresh basil, thyme, rosemary, common mint, chives and sage leaves.

Of course, dried herbs are readily available, but the problem with these is that the oils dry out as the dried tissues age. Buy dried herbs in the smallest possible quantities, date them when you buy them and throw them out if you haven't used them up within a couple of months. (If a dried herb has lost any greenish tint, it has gone flat.) This can get pricey, so using fresh herbs isn't necessarily more expensive, even though a few ounces generally run $2 or more.

Harold McGee's fascinating culinary science book, "On Food and Cooking," explains that only a few families of plants contain strongly scented oils and, of these, two — Umbelliferae, the carrot group, and Labiatae, the mint group — contribute most of the herbs in common use in the West. From the carrot family come anise, caraway, coriander, cumin, dill, fennel and parsley; from the mint group, basil, mint, marjoram, oregano, rosemary, sage and thyme.

In the carrot family, he says, the oils are concentrated in the seeds and in cavities between cells in the leaf and stem. In the mint group, the oil glands are hairlike cells on the leaves and stems.

You almost can't use too much of a fresh herb; even when they're quite fragrant, they generally aren't intensely flavored except at high concentrations. This is in sharp contrast to spices, which are easy to overuse, because they are very intense to begin with and the oils are concentrated in the drying process to which most spices are subjected.

Be sure to lightly wash and pick over fresh herbs before use. Remove woody stems or chop them very finely.

The first time I heard the word "aromatics" was in a cooking class with the late chef, restaurateur and cooking instructor Barbara Tropp of San Francisco, who taught us to make a paste of minced aromatic ingredients (such as garlic, onions and herbs or spices) and gently fry this in a little oil before mixing them into a dish. Recently, I've been making a parsley garnish by very roughly chopping a bunch of Italian flat-leaf parsley, then frying it in a small drizzle of hot olive oil until it's dark green and wilted. Turn off heat and allow to sit in pan until you're ready to top a dish with it; the parsley will crisp and dry a little and is very fragrant and tasty.

In French cuisine, aromatic garniture is a mixture of aromatic vegetables that are finely diced and used to create a broth for a stew or braised dish. The classic one is mirepoix (carrot, onion, celery). But mixtures containing herbs, such as a bouquet garni (herbs tied together or placed in a cheesecloth bundle — the classic trio is parsley, thyme, bay leaf), also are used.

Another way to use herbs is to create a persillade — a paste of garlic, parsley and olive oil and sometimes bread crumbs and/or other herbs. Persillades may be stirred into sauteed foods in the pan just before serving as a final flavor note, or used to coat roasts or fish during baking, or to top baked or roasted vegetables. Use about equal parts herbs and garlic, finely minced, and drizzle in enough olive oil to form a paste.

Another way to use heat to release the flavor of herbs is to drop handfuls of woody herbs — rosemary is an obvious choice — onto hot coals before grilling meats. You also can use herb bunches as a brush for applying basting mixtures to grilling foods.

Herb butters are yet another possibility: Mix together slightly softened butter (not melted) and a generous portion of your choice of a minced herb, then roll the mixture up into a log and wrap it tightly in waxed paper. Refrigerate and slice off discs to melt atop grilled meats or fish, or steamed or grilled vegetables.

The bottom line: Don't be afraid of herbs. Use them with a lavish hand to give ordinary dishes a gourmet flair.